Japanese Architect Kuma Wins Int’l Award

Paris, Sept. 1 (Jiji Press)–Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was named the winner of a lifetime achievement award on Monday by the Createurs Design Association, an international organization that honors extraordinary achievements in architecture and other creative fields. Kuma, 72, will receive the Andree Putman Lifetime Achievement Award, named after the late French designer, at a ceremony in Paris next January. He is the second Japanese person to receive the award, after Tadao Ando, 84, in 2023. “More than anything, I am honored that the Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the entirety of everything I do,” Kuma said in a statement. “Over more than three decades, his practice has advanced a synthesis of architecture and nature, reinterpreting Japanese tradition in a contemporary context,” the association said. Kuma was born in the city of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, in 1954. He is known for having designed the Japan National Stadium, recently renamed MUFG Stadium, which was the main venue of the Tokyo Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2021, as well as V&A Dundee in Scotland, part of Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]